[nyc_data_geek1]

My feeling is that rather than a snuffing out, we are witnessing a passing of the torch of the light of progress.

Better start learning mandarin.

[EthanHeilman]

Science works better with collaboration. If China and Europe have to take up the slack from a self-inflicted wound to US research, science as a whole suffers. There is far more science to do than scientists and when science funding gets canceled the number of scientist decrease.

After the US canceled the SSC, Europe built the LHC. The LHC isn't a one for one replacement of the SSC, but it would probably not have been built if the SSC had been built. What scientific projects would Europe have built instead? What did we lose?